Share This Story

I always knew I wanted to go to Moore. I didn’t even want to finish high school! I just wanted to go to art school.

I earned my BFA in Sculpture and Painting from Moore in 1974 and later went on to earn my MFA in Interior Design from Drexel University.

Today, I’m the founder of Andi Pepper Interior Design in New York City. My work includes creating contemporary interiors for restaurants, residencies, lobbies and pub­lic spaces of cooperative and condominium buildings and commercial interiors, as well as joint hotel and residential projects with my husband’s firm, The Stephen B. Jacobs group.

I bring to each project an extensive background, interest and involvement in fine arts, which was honed at Moore. My interest in interior design was first sparked in graduate school, where I realized I could apply my knowledge of sculpture and painting to large commercial interiors.

I attribute my success – it all comes back to being a fine artist at Moore. There were no boundaries when it came to creativity and expressing myself. My whole process – I was never afraid or intimidated when it came to the arts. I felt like I could do whatever I wanted to do.

My work has won numerous awards for design excellence. I was the originator of the Gansevoort Hotel concept and was responsible for the design of the original Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking district in NYC, The Gansevoort in South Beach, Florida and The Gansevoort Park Avenue South, NYC.

My hotel portfolio also includes many of New York’s hip lifestyle hotels, including Library Hotel, Hotel Giraffe and more. I also recently completed the Breakwater Hotel in South Beach, the Edge, a million square foot condominium in Williamsburg, NY and I’m currently working on the massive Hotel X in Toronto, Ontario.

Opening my own design firm was the result of intense focus, determination and the belief that anything is possible, all traits I learned from being at an all-women’s college.

I was really focused and I could really be myself. Looking back, if Moore was coed, I might have been more distracted. It didn’t matter how you dressed or looked. Everyone was there for the same reason – it was exciting.

Being at Moore in the 1970s was the time of Vietnam and Feminism, and being a woman at that time, Moore gave you possibilities. I wanted to be something. Moore opened up a whole new world for me.